California’s potentially record whooping cough epidemic has spotlighted complaints by some rural doctors that vaccines to prevent that disease and others are too expensive to provide.

The problem isn’t in supply, but in how much – or how little – insurance companies are willing to reimburse doctors for providing the shots that prevent illnesses.

Even when insurers cover the cost of vaccines, they don’t pay for storing and administering them, said California Academy of Family Physicians spokesman Tom Reilly.

Providing one round of vaccines to a child can cost a doctor’s office $450, he said.

The group’s complaint applies only to those in the insured population. Uninsured children qualify for their shots through the federal Vaccines for Children Program or Medi-Cal, which provides the vaccines free of charge and gives doctors a reimbursement fee.

Additionally, the California Department of Public Health provides county health departments and hospital systems with free doses of the vaccines to administer, and there are no shortages in supply, according to spokesman Ken August.

A survey published in the Journal of Pediatrics in December 2008 found that 10 percent of doctors who vaccinated privately insured children were considering dropping the service because it was too expensive.

Dr. Sumana Reddy’s rural practice in Salinas serves a small farming community and she takes care of entire families, from birth to old age.

Sometimes, her payroll can’t be met because there are up to $40,000 in outstanding charges for vaccines to insurers, racked up over 60-day periods, who are laggard in payments, if they pay at all, she said.

“Even doctors who work hard to purchase the vaccine at the best available rate often cannot match the low reimbursement that insurance pays for that vaccine,” Reddy said.

“There’s no other existing business model where people are literally handing cash over to their customers, and that’s what makes this vaccine issue so difficult.”

The physicians’ group has proposed legislation, AB2093, to require insurers to pay administration costs for vaccines, including the whooping cough vaccine.

The lobbying group California Association of Health Plans opposes the bill as overreaching on the type of costs that should be covered.

“The Legislature is enamored with mandating services and payments to providers while railing against the high cost of health insurance,” said Patrick Johnston, president of the CAHP.

The legislation will raise costs and prices of premiums, Johnston said.

The bill is to be heard by the Senate Health Committee next week.

On Wednesday, state health officials announced that whooping cough is now an epidemic in California, on pace to break a 50-year record for infections, with 910 cases and 600 suspected cases to date in 2010. Five babies under 3 months of age have died of the disease this year.

Whooping cough typically starts with a cough and runny nose for one to two weeks, followed by weeks or months of rapid coughing fits that sometimes end with a whooping sound. Fever is rare.